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Great blog. Yes, the art of breeding. Nature is a quick teacher that greed is no good.

This is truly cruel.

I personally would add more beads at the ends and rather make the necklace shorter or go and hunt for matching pearls. But you should see how the necklace looks like when you get the pearls and try different arrangements. When it does, you'll know. I learned for myself that I am not good at...

Thanks Dawn. Yes, that is my source for gold beads so far. I like their workmanship. However, I am looking for more modern shapes and thought about commissioning some beads from him. He seems to use relatively thick plating, so I would be sure the gold layer stays for many years.

I like it. Now that I know it is not my computer.

I personally prefer the smaller beads and I would do gold color. They bring out the peacock color, whereas the designer beads kill it in my opinion.

Great story and I can sense there are many more to follow. But you shaded the edges of your web site my friend. I realized that only after I run a couple of diagnostic programs to check whether my computer screen was giving up. I think I need new glasses.

Cathy: That strand looks great.

Pearlies: I agree with Jeremy that the first strand is nicer. But 7 inches is a lot. However, once it is knotted and has a clasp it will be longer than it is now. My own strand will take a while. I am right now looking for larger beads with modern, clean shapes. Since gold is too expensive right...

I just work on a pearl strand with rough gemstones and metal beads, so I like the mix. However, I prefer gold. I also like it better when the arrangement is not very regular, i.e not pearl-bead-pearl-bead. If you just want to add beads irregularly, I would go with yellow or white 18K gold and...

Perhaps this: L?deritz Abalone Farming, established by Johannes and Renate Erasmus in 2002 Company Address : Bremmer Street 2 Postal Code : 9000 Company Phone : 264-63-203392 Company Fax : 264-63-2031`79 Contact Person : Mr. Rassie Erasmus Contact Person : 264-63-203392

Interesting thoughts. It seems abalone would be a good model system to study nacre deposition. I have similar thoughts regarding a type of immune system that senses a wound and then responds by inducing nacre deposition. I believe this type of system was only invented once in evolution and...

And then just think about the 10 pound. I mean a like oysters. But 10 pounds?? Needs a lemon tree that one.

I think you are speculating correctly Caitlin.

I think genetic engineering of oysters is only doable when using cultured colonies, not wild stock. Even genetic selection should in principle be done only with contained stock to safeguard wild stock. I am surprised this is not monitored. Trying to genetically select oysters is one thing, but...

Interesting story. Thanks for the link. Here is the article in Plos One: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0021238 Now the fun starts.

Hi Dianne, Welcome to the forum. It is nice to have somebody here from the Maluku region. I would advise you to test your pearls and confirm that they are indeed naturals. Any buyers would then be much more interested. To me to be honest, the pearls look cultured. But then, it is hard to judge...

Dave: Thanks for the paper link. Very informative. I should have been more clear. I did not think that you can do it without mantle cells. I was more thinking about how to make them produce nacre a bit faster. I agree with you that the factors at the level of the secretion apparatus are too...

Of course there is also a natural source of chitin that may also be willing to produce proteins, such as the N16, Pif80, and Pif97 proteins mentioned in the article: Budding yeast. It may be hard to form that cake into perfect beads, but since Chinese pearl farmers use muck for "nucleation"...

I agree that the signal inside the cell is hormonal. But I am having some evil thoughts about turning natural pearl production into something unnatural. Could it be that some of the parasites and pathogens that invade molluscs have a chitin outer layer? Then, just commercially available chitin...